Custom essays on Art of romanticism: ideas of Henry Fuseli and William Turner

With undoubted interest in classical antiquity and draft to classicism, Fuseli illustrated Shakespeare and Blake. His paintings display predilection for darkly fantastic scenes, taken from literature, folklore and mythology; for a grotesque depiction of fear and madness, supernatural beings (demons, witches, and ghosts) (Brown 315-16).
Fuseli’s huge paintings inspired by the works of William Shakespeare, Dante, Homer and the literature of German Romanticism praise Herculean impulses of man and the tragic conflicts of his passions, combine the idealization of images in the classicism manner with unbridled dark fantasy, sophisticated grotesque, and sometimes with sharp observations of life (“Titania and the Fairies” 1793, “Lady Macbeth” 1784, a series of paintings for “Shakespeare Gallery”, 1786-1790, and “Milton Gallery”, 1790-1800). Fuseli also produced pictures which embodied the dark, irrational visions (“Nightmare” 1782, “The Dream of Eve” 1804, “Silence” 1801), performed drawings virtuosic by their graphic techniques (illustrations to Dante’s The Divine Comedy, 1777, Homer’s Iliad, 1795-1800, etc.: “Achilles Searching for the Shade of Patrocles”, “Dante and Virgil on the Ice of Kocythos”, “Adam and Eve”, “The Death of Cardinal Beaufort”, “Teiresias foretells the future to Odysseus”) (Myrone 57-59; Brown 317-20).
“Nightmare” is one of Fuseli’s most famous paintings. The shape of a sleeping or unconscious woman depicted in the picture is lengthened and curved. Fuseli deliberately painted her that way to show the gravity of an incubus sitting on her chest – an embodiment of nightmares and unconscious fears. Between the curtains there is a head of a blind horse, whose image in this painting anticipates the demonic aspect attributed to this animal in the late French romanticism (Brown 325).
Fuseli, who all his life depicted something what had been already described, expressed in words, tried here to provide something not having definitions or concepts: he personified unconscious feelings of fear, horror and anguish in the form of some fantastic creatures. In this picture there is no dramatic tension, no clash of passions: in his sleep one is left to oneself. But staying alone with oneself, one becomes the plaything of unknowable forces invading from outside – this conflict is entirely within the sphere of romantic disposition (Brown 188-89).
The basic contradiction of Fuseli painting is beautifully expressed Goethe who got interested in Fuseli’s works and stated that Fuseli’s poetry and art are ever at odds and do not let the viewer just enjoy the painting (Myrone 73). The content of Fuseli’s paintings was too exciting and self-expressive for the classical aesthetic perception of people of his century. Speaking about Fuseli, Goethe, as if without knowing it, managed to formulate one of the central problems of the development of 19th century art, which was largely anticipated by the artist even before the century factually started.
In his turn, a British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner is considered to be a master of romantic landscape, who influenced the development of Impressionist direction. Up to 1805, he was evidently under the influence of Wilson and Dutch masters, and then became a good imitator of Lorraine and Poussin in the area of idealistic landscape, setting the task to achieve clarity in the composition, relief with the help of contrast between light and shadows, serenity of the air and completeness of execution (“Shipwreck” 1805, “Sun Rise Through Vapour” 1807, “Apollo and Python” 1811, “Dido and Aeneas” 1814, etc.) (Wilton 32-35). Turner’s landscapes always contain an element of struggle as an integral part of life. Even in those cases where the artist reproduces nature in moments of peace and quiet, he creates a magnificent canvas, reflecting the total triumph of the element of light or darkness (“Frosty Morning”, 1813) (Brown 25).
In 1820’s, after the artist’s trip to Italy, a noticeable change happens: Turner prefers full light, avoids heavy shadows, and becomes addicted to clean and bright tones, especially to purple, blue and orange, and plays with a number of transitions. At the same time, his brush becomes broader and freer (“The Bay of Baiae” 1827, “Ulysses deriding Polyphemus” 1829). William Turner tried to hide the innovative for his time perception of the world behind the conventional classic landscapes that served as the backdrop for some of his paintings on mythological and historical themes (“Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps”, 1820) (Wilton 91-97) .
Visit to Venice had a profound impact on the perception of color by Turner. Since then, the light begins to play an increasingly important role in his works. Delicious transparency of Italian watercolors, their richness of light and air give a striking contrast with the first works of Turner, painted in oil. Landscapes which were created after the artist’s second trip to Italy are considered the peak of his creativity, literally flooded with light, to be exact – wrapped in a colored mist, from which less recognizable silhouettes emerge. The master perceives the nature primarily as a mirror of attitude of the artist and his experiences, transforming the real world into the phantasmagoric illusion generated by the play of sunlight (Brown 64-71).